September 22, 2015 2:06 am

In an ongoing effort to reduce fraud, banks across the country are issuing new credit and debit cards with an embedded computer chip – a small, metallic square on the front of the payment card, according to the American Bankers Association (ABA). The advanced security of the chip card will make it extremely difficult for fraudsters to counterfeit or copy the card.

“Banks are continually looking for ways to leverage technologies to protect their customers whether it’s at a store, at the ATM or online,” says ABA President and CEO Frank Keating. “This chip technology is another layer of security for the millions of in-person transactions made every day.”

The computer chip assigns a one-time code, making every transaction unique and the card more difficult to counterfeit or copy. The new cards will still have a magnetic stripe for cases where the merchant does not have an activated chip reader.